Posts Tagged ‘parade’

Here are just a bunch of photos from our super fun day at the Norwich Winterfest Parade. Caroline got to be a judge, the weather was great, and we brought home so much candy we still have some almost a week later.

Sometimes our town looks like the place they film Netflix Christmas movies (I’m obsessed with Netflix Christmas movies), and this was one of those days.

America is the land of the free because of the brave, who we honor on Memorial Day each year. I selfishly hope it’s always a holiday I think of in the abstract and enjoy as the unofficial start of summer, rather than a day with personal meaning. So many families aren’t that lucky. I’ve never been a very good military spouse – I’m not good at volunteering for things, I’m never on committees, I rarely attend meetings, I don’t sign up for meal trains, I forget about bake sales and I’m so bad at military ranks, rates and jobs I’m still not 100% sure what my own husband does. All I know is he’s good at it and he’s gone a lot. I just need him to come back every time.

We had a great weekend that kept us very busy. The big kids had a birthday party, Caroline had a ballet recital, everyone over the age of 4 got to see the new Avengers movie plus we went to the parade and the lake. We also went to the downtown carnival, where I spent way too much money on a few rides and cheap prizes, but the kids ran into several friends and had a great time. The house is a DISASTER and we don’t have a single dry towel, but I’m so happy I can finally use summer as an excuse for my poor housekeeping.

Every year we go to Geer’s Tree Farm the day after Thanksgiving to pick out a Christmas tree. It’s perfect New England fun, with tractor rides and kettle corn and beautiful scenery. The next day is the Norwich Winterfest Holiday Parade, which goes right past our street. It’s one of the best weekends of the year, especially when it’s almost 60 degrees and sunny. My sister and brother-in-law came with us to the tree farm and our favorite Navy friends joined us for the parade.

We’ve been going to Geer’s Tree Farm for almost a decade now! It was raining the day after Thanksgiving so we waited until Saturday. That meant our tree decorating was interrupted by some parade viewing (the husbands stayed home for Finn- and football-watching). It wasn’t exactly warm but it wasn’t frigid, so it was perfect Christmas activity weather. We dragging our Thanksgiving guests around with us because I love them too much to not see them every possible second, but I also love Christmass too much to delay it TWO weekends, which would be the next time E could come pick out a tree.

The Norwich Winterfest Parade goes right through our neighborhood – you can see my green house in the background of half the photos – and it’s my second favorite holiday after cutting down our tree. A lot of the organizations throw candy for the kids, so they end up stuffed with sugar. Caroline talked one of the guys selling junk from a cart into giving us 4 of these ribbon wands for $3, and they had a great time waving them around.

Evan lost the battle with the wind.

SANTA! I KNOW HIM!

And then Christmas threw up ALL OVER my house.

This was the next morning, which explains the daylight and matching jams.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m a little late and fully into Christmas mode now, which is my favorite part of the year. I’d like to just live in the 4 weeks before Christmas forever. We had friends here for the holiday and it was so, so great. They did so much work/child entertaining that it felt like a vacation instead of hosting.

Sunday:

Super excited to give this to Evan for Christmas

The extent of my Thanksgiving decorating

Sibling cuddles

Monday:

First snow!

Linc likes “helping”

Hello cutie

Tuesday:

Making his Christmas list

The most beautiful wrap in the world

Sunset = same time as bus pick up

Wednesday:

Shop til you drop

Don’t even care what they watch as long as they’re quite for 20 minutes

Thursday:

Men doing manly turkey frying

Potato masher

Caroline is the quality control department

Friday:

Black Friday Hanna shopping

Linc was SO into decorating, it was adorable

More gingerbread building

Saturday:

Christmas tree hunter

Small town adorable parade

Tree is up!

For the record, I am still sick. It’s now been 4 weeks with the cough, that has now become a sinus infection, most likely an ear infection and a weird painful bump on the roof of my mouth the internet tells me is probably related. I’m almost desperate enough to go to the doctor, although I’m still 90% sure they’ll say “it’s a virus, nothing we can do”. Maybe just MAKING an appointment will scare the virus into going away. I’m pretty sure that’s how viruses work.

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Bonjour! No I'm not French, it just sounded fancy. Sorry for the confusion. I'm Suzanne, a 36-year-old mom, photographer, Navy wife, blogger, baker, and amateur at pretty much everything else. The stars of the show are Evan, born 4/5/09, Caroline, born 12/19/2010 and Lincoln, born 7/23/2014. The last bebeh is Finnegan, born 8/30/2016 so he's a toddler now but don't talk to me about that. We live in Connecticut and enjoy it very much except for most of February and March. You can find more of my photos (or even hire me!) over on my photography site, Ginger Snaps Pictures. I love hearing from you so if you have questions, stories or ideas to share, email me at bebehblog@gmail.com .

Affiliate disclosure: some of my posts contain links which may be affiliate links. That means I get Diet Coke money if you happen to like something I mention enough to buy it. I appreciate it!